Daddy's Girls (DC Charlie Stafford #5) by Sarah Flint
Genre: Police procedural, crime fiction
Read: 15th September 2019
Purchase: Amazon
(release date: 5th September 2019)
★★ 2.5 stars
DADDY'S GIRLS is the fifth book in the DC Charlotte Stafford series by Sarah Flint, but it was a first for me. A police procedural but also a crime thriller, it is complex and it is gritty with a slow burning tension.
TRIGGER WARNING:
Elder abuse, rape, sexual assault and drug use should be advised before you consider reading.
It has been a year since Thomas Houghton had buried his wife Catherine and he blames his daughter, Emma, for the disease that claimed her life. Diagnosed with MS shortly after Emma's birth, Thomas believes she was the cause which ultimately contributed to his wife's death. Now he is drugged, delusional and broke, frequenting crack houses for his latest fix while Emma works menial jobs to pay for the tiny bedsit they now live in.
Approaching the anniversary of his wife's death, Thomas rushes in elated and brimming with news. He has seen Catherine! She has returned to him! Emma brushes off his words as delusional ramblings. Her mother has been dead a year. But Thomas is adamant, believing he has seen his dead wife and no one and nothing will come between them again. Of this he must ensure.
Thomas has waited and watched Catherine for a while now. He knows her routine. He knows she misses him as much as he has missed her. Tonight's the night; as she turns off her lights he knows he must make himself known to her again. Crawling in through her bathroom window, he stealthily approaches her bedroom and as he enters she senses his presence and awakes. He smiles. She has been waiting for him. The fact that the woman is wide-eyed with fear and pleading with him not to hurt her doesn't seem to register with him. Even as he calls her Catherine and identifies himself as Thomas, the woman does not know him - but it doesn't deter him. Nothing will come between them now; till death do us part.
Faced with an odd case and a tough one at that, Charlie is on the hunt for a burglar who, gloved and masked, breaks into homes of the elderly in the dead of night. Codename "Operation Greystream", he isn't interested in valuables nor does he hurt them - he just wants to chat. And then when he leaves, takes a memento of no real value.
But then things turn nasty when 87 year old Florence Briarly is found by her friend and neighbour, cold to touch and neatly tucked into bed. Has this burglar escalated to murder? If so, he will now have a taste for it and it won't be long until he craves it again.
Charlie and her team, under the leadership of DI Geoffrey Hunter, chase avenues of enquiry, follow up leads and investigate why this troubling case has suddenly turned sinister. Reports are coming in hard and fast from care homes where there had been troubling incidents of someone seen lurking and peeping in the windows of the elderly residents. Charlie is troubled with why this villain is so fascinated with the elderly. What is it attracts him?
Then a report comes in about a rape within the villian's comfort zone with a similar MO. The phone line is cut, enters in the dead of night and then as he is leaving, steals something that has only sentimental value to the victim. But this time it's rape. Is it the same man? Has, what started out as simple break-ins for a chat, progressed into rape and murder?
The two cases are being investigated separately but with the possibility that they are connected. As the reader, they seem to be separate...but are they really? From the outset, we know who the rapist is but we are completely in the dark as to the identity of the murderer.
Throughout the story we are witness to a lot of petty crime that connects to one of the cases, but is it also related to the other? There is a lot of drug use which is rampant but of little interest to me. For me, it certainly doesn't make the story any more gripping.
There are several third party perspectives telling the story and at some points I was a little confused as to the POV, particularly towards the end when the stand-off unfolded throughout various perspectives. I normally don't get confused with multiple POVs but in this case, I found it a little confusing.
DADDY'S GIRLS is really a slow burn that I didn't feel pick up much at all. I found it long and drawn out and I had to force myself to continue, knowing that a lot of work is put into writing and creating these stories. It kind of makes me feel bad when I don't enjoy a book as much as I had hoped. But that is not to say that others won't. In fact, there have been a lot of positive reviews about it already so I must be in the minority.
I think, for me, this is a series that really needs to be read from the beginning to gain a better appreciation of it as a whole. Charlie plays such a minor role it didn't feel as if it was part of her story. The main focus was on the two investigations and the residents of the crack house. I didn't feel I got to know Charlie at all, or her team for that matter. There was less police procedural in this and more of a crime thriller, and yet I don't feel it can be read as a stand-alone as some others do. It felt like something was missing and I couldn't connect to Charlie or the stories that unfolded.
I think the book would have been far better with just the case of Thomas Houghton as that in itself was major story that would have played out better on its own with maybe a smaller separate investigation as an aside. Having two major cases just made it too confusing with too much going on.
I was also puzzled by the title as it didn't appear to have any bearing whatsoever on the story, or stories, at all. DADDY'S GIRLS speaks of something far sinister than what unfolded in these pages, as despicable as they were also.
However, the ending gave us a final twist with a secret that leaves readers wanting to find out more and sets the scene for the next installment nicely.
In summary, I think I would have appreciated DADDY'S GIRLS a lot more had I read the rest of the series first. I don't think it works as well as a stand-alone, not with the knowledge that it IS part of a series at least. However, the story is gritty and action-packed throughout and I think fans of the DC Charlie Stafford series won't be disappointed.
I would like to thank #SarahFlint, #NetGalley and #Aria for an ARC of #DaddysGirls in exchange for an honest review.
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